If I pick my pen up and hold it to my mouth, start talking to somebody, don't y'all laugh, because I got too many things to hold on to tonight. And I don't like doing this. I can't hear it. For some reason, I can't hear it. So I hope that you can. But with my hearing, the way it is, I have no idea how loud I am, how soft I am. And I can't even hear myself. So it's really strange for me tonight. So pray for me. We're back in Psalm 33. We spent quite a bit of time. Thank you for all the questions I've gotten. And don't stop giving them in. I've gotten several. I think the date on the calendar is January 6th to have our first Wednesday evening question and answer session. And I've gotten several questions. We've probably got enough for at least, probably two, maybe three. and answer sessions because there is no way to answer all of them in one session. So, that's really good. And not all of them are on the sovereignty of God through salvation and that's good too. So, there are a lot of other things to address. And the good thing about it is we'll grow and learn together. I was telling I think Ms. Sue that when I first started teaching the men's Bible study here that Butch came with a lot of questions. And Butch and I grew in our walk with God together and answering those questions. Most of the time when he'd ask me a question, I'd say, well, I don't know. Let's figure this out. And we'd study back and forwards all through the week and figure it out through the Word of God. And there's a bond there. and a special bond. So it hopefully will create a special bond between us and more people participate. Don't be afraid to ask a question. You can, like I say, you can send it to me. Some of you sent it directly to me. You can give it to Joanne. You can drop it in the little box in her office anonymously if you want to, which some people have done that too. And don't think that it's a dumb question. If you don't know it, The only dumb question is not asking one. If you don't know it, we'll try to answer it. If I can't answer it, which probably is true, Stan will answer it and then give me the words to say. Then God will leave us both. How's that? Well, Psalm 33. We spent a lot of time on verse 12. That's what we'll probably pick up tonight. The Psalm that is a call to worship and paints a picture of God as sovereign over all things. Sovereign in creation. I don't think anybody has a problem with declaring God sovereign over creation. He spoke and it happened. And I don't know that anybody's asked me a question about that. I don't think anybody even struggles with acknowledging that. He's sovereign in the sustaining of his creation. And we've not had issues with that at all either. We know that God is in control of all things, good or bad. And God is sovereign over all nations and all people. We know that as well. And the sovereignty over salvation, we run into that, the wall that sometimes it comes up whenever we begin to consider we're not in control. And we're not in control. And God is in control of all things. And I've heard people say it all the life, but we can't pick and choose what he's in control of. But tonight we look at verse 12, we're gonna read through, we're gonna finish this Psalm out. tonight and say goodbye to Psalm 33, hopefully. Moving on to Psalm 34 in the coming weeks in our Christmas season. We only have, I think, one more Wednesday night, really, until before Christmas that we'll be together, if I'm not mistaken. try to finish this up if the Lord willing. But look at verse 12 and we'll read down through the rest of the chapter. It says, the Word of God says in Psalm 33 verse 12, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. The Lord looketh from heaven, he beholdeth all the sons of men. From the place of his habitation he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth. He fashioned their hearts alike, he considered all their works. There is no king saved by a multitude of hosts. A mighty man is not delivered by much strength. A horse is a vain thing for safety. Neither shall he deliver any by his great strength. Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy. to deliver their souls from death and to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waited for the Lord. He is our help and our shield. For our heart shall rejoice in him because we have trusted in his holy name. Let thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us according as we hope in thee. Let's pray again before we begin to look at the rest of this psalm. Father, we thank you for this beautiful psalm. That paints such a vivid picture of who you are. We're praying now that everything is spoken, everything that's done tonight, Lord, is spoken in truth. That we all leave here not having heard from me or anyone else, but having only heard from you. We pray that the Holy Spirit would teach us and that our hearts would be open and teachable to the Holy Spirit. And Lord, that you be glorified to our obedience and our submission to what we learned tonight. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. We spent a lot of time talking about the chosen part of verse 12, but we look at a nation who whose God is the Lord. We've spoken of God's sovereignty in stopping, or thwarting is the Bible word, the heathen nations or the hostile nations that surrounded the nation of Israel. And now we look at verse 12, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. And then it goes on to talk about God looking at the nation seeing from heaven. Israel is a special people that it is writing about. That's who the psalmist would have had in mind specifically when he wrote this. And we can apply some of that to us. Not everything that applies to Israel applies to us. But in this I think we have enough scripture throughout the Bible to say that God Blessed are the people whose God is the Lord, we can say that as well. Even though as far as a country is being chosen or a country that is specified, there's only been one real country chosen, that's Israel. Our country, if we think about it, is not really a Christian country. It does have some roots and we'll talk about that. through this. But Israel was chosen by God. Why? Was it because they were the best people? No. Was it because they were the biggest number? No. Was it because God looked down through history and saw that they would do something with His foreknowledge and said these people are going to do what I want them to do? No, because they didn't do what I want them to do. He chose them just because He chose them. And Deuteronomy 7 read in earlier scripture, for you are a holy people to your Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. The Lord did not set his love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which he swore to your forefathers. The Lord brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery from the hand of Pharaoh and king of Egypt. He did it because he loved them. He did it because he wanted to, not because of who they were. And because the Jews rejected Christ, the gospel went to the Gentiles. And we are those Gentiles. And we thank God for that tonight. So how do we think of our own nation? How do we think about the United States? If we look at this, we think, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. How should we consider the United States of America? Our nation has never been a pure Christian nation any more than Israel was ever entirely godly. Our nation has strong roots in Christianity. In the past, we can look back and read history before revisionist might change that and see that God and truth and the Bible and morality were revered. The Bible was even the textbook in most schools in the beginning. And they obeyed, most people obeyed or held the standards of a biblical standard in their lives and in their schools and in their families. The Puritans, if you heard Stan talk about the Puritans, who all held to a very, most of all, who held to a very vivid picture of a sovereign God in all things, including salvation, played a major role in the founding of our nation. they even, if you read some of what they said, they even looked at coming to this country as a new type of, a new Israel. As their venture here, they called it an errand into the wilderness. And they were comparing it to the desert journey that the Israelites took to the promised land. So we would be right to say that America was blessed in its early history because mainly most people God. They were blessed because God was their Lord. Now we move in our way back machine back to the future and we look at now in this age of secular humanism, how does our country look today? And if we look at the country, godless people stand and say lost people act like lost people. We see a country full of lost people. And we're not surprised that they act the way they do, people that don't regard God. We look at the church, which is what we're part of, the church. The church today, the emphasis is on man. The gospel has become man-centered instead of God-centered. Sending out questionnaires to the people, asking them what pleases them in worship, what makes them happy, what would cause them to come back to worship service, never considering what God requires of them in the Word of God. Same churches never consider what God would require of them. And people mishandle the Word of God. They add to, they take away from it, they change it at will to fit the needs of the moment and to keep people in the seats. And that's where we find the mainstream church of the day. I would say now our country is not Christian anymore. Not that it ever was completely Christian, but it's just not anymore. It's what I heard someone say, we are a militantly secular society. I'll say that again, militantly secular society. We just went through a year of COVID, which did damage, but I would tell you that the riots and the unrest by a few people did more damage. The dollar amount we may never know because they won't tell us just how much was destroyed. Put insurance companies out of business and people out of work just because they could not pay for the millions of dollars just for Walmart, which was the number one target in all the riots. People get mad, they want to go rob a Walmart. But it is this militant type attitude. Nothing, no regard for God. even in those around. And the church leads the way by saying the gospel is man-centered and church should be man-centered. And nobody bows their knee to God, not even the church. So we wonder why we're in this situation now. And we talk about a blessed nation whose God is the Lord, not the one we made up. but the one that's in the word of God. I fear and I wonder what will happen and what's gonna happen in the United States because God is not our Lord. The God of the Bible is not our Lord. What's gonna happen to those churches and what's gonna happen? One day they'll be judged by God, but what will happen until that happens? Because if he carries another 100 years, another 10 years, what will happen? We don't have to fear because our God is the Lord. For those true believers, we have confidence because even in a secular, militant, godless society, we're still blessed by God. We're still those people that are blessed by God. And first thing the psalmist says here in this, as he lists out some of these blessings that we have, is God's watchfulness over us. Look back at our scripture. Verses 13 and 14 of our text says the Lord looks or looketh from heaven. He beholds the sons of men from the place of his habitation. He looks upon the inhabitants of the earth. The thought of a sovereign God, of Creator God looking down on us, watching over us, should ignite us into confidence, into a praise. And it's so strong, it's so mentioned so strong in the words that are in the original language that are used here to declare that God is watching through this next section of verses. It's so strong that some scholars, the Puritans even, called this God's eye, this section of scripture. This is God's eye upon His people, upon all people actually. It stresses He looks at everyone, heathen and Christian alike, heathen and godly alike. Look at verse 13, it says, He sees all of mankind. The Lord looketh from heaven. He beholds all the sons of men. And verse 14, He watches all who live on the earth upon all the inhabitants of the earth. In verse 14, he who forms the hearts of all considers everything they do. He considers all their works. So we would call this God's omniscience. This is God knows everything. You can't hide from God. You've heard that. You can't go anywhere and hide from God. Anywhere into a closet, anywhere in time, any place, anywhere can you go and hide from God. And that's the picture that's painted in this Psalm of God being all knowing. We're talking about sovereign God over everything. Now we see he's sovereign and that he knows everything. Hebrews 4.13 of the New Testament reads this way. There is no creature hidden from his sight, but in all things are open and they bear to his eyes, of him with whom we have to do. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weakness, but one who has tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Really didn't have to read all those verses. Verse 13 says, well, I want to, but that whole section of scripture is probably one of my favorite scriptures in the whole New Testament because it gives you confidence in who God is. And this psalm gives us confidence in who God is as he has his watchful eye on us. And knowing that God's watching you will greatly affect you. And how it affects you depends on what comes to mind when you think of God. If God is not sovereign and everything in this world is just a chance. And a lot of people try to do that with monkeys to man. They try to fit evolution in. It'll cause them to think that way. And people will challenge God being sovereign, saying, well, the things are just up to chance. And if you have that idea that all the everything that's going on around us is just by chance and we don't know what's going to happen. Nobody does, not even God. Then you're going to be really stressed out and worried most of the time. That's not the picture what the Bible presents. The Bible clearly presents God as sovereign over all things. And if God is sovereign over all things, no matter what happens, what comes, we know from scripture it is what can happen outside of God. If something can happen and change God or happen that is out of God's power, then God's not God. I mean, that's simple as that. So all things happen within God and within his sovereign power. And if you have that thought, which is a biblical thought, of God, then you receive a confidence in those things. When things begin to go crazy around you, you begin to stand confidently knowing that, hey, God's sovereign. He brought this here for a reason, and I've got confidence in Him because He is in control. Assurance. Everything that happens comes as God planned it because He's sovereign. And we often think ourselves that we're more in control than we often are. I often use the example, and I've used it in here before, and I'll use it again, of going to Dollywood with my mother-in-law. And on those little antique cars you ride around on a track, and I was taking pictures because I got through first, and she was riding with Chandler. Chandler was little then. And she was just taking that steering wheel and just turning it. And she got off, and I said, well, how was it? She said, it was good. She said, I had the hardest time keeping that car in the roadway it needed to go. Well, things were on the track, and I had to explain that to her. She didn't have any control over the steering. It was just there for decoration. And that's the picture that's painted. God is in control. We think we're in control, and we get stressed out because we're trying to hold it in the road. But it's God who's in control. And think about how much more enjoyable her ride would have been if she'd have known that. Somebody should have told her ahead of time. But we often think we're in control. We make plans to do certain things and to accomplish those things, we work to get that done. And yet in the end, we know we don't have certainty over the outcome. We didn't, definitely didn't plan on this coronavirus. I remember saying the first of this year, this is going to be a strange year. We were trying to put numbers together for my other job and say, what are you going to do? I said, well, you need to be careful, because this is an election year. We don't know what's going to happen. And then the bottom fell out, and the world changed probably forever. We didn't plan that. But we don't control everything. Guess who does? God does. God planned this. This is a plan that he had for this time. This is not an accident. He is sovereignly in control of this virus. And I know that people have a problem with that. Well, God lets people die? I'm sorry, people die. If God's in control and we agree God's sovereign, people die. God had to allow it. I mean, it's just what happens. Everybody, one of us or all of us will one day die unless Jesus comes back. And God will have to allow that too. Proverbs 16, 19 says this, that the heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. We think we're in control. It's God who establishes our steps. James 13, 15 says, come now you who say tomorrow or today we will go and do such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make profit, yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a vapor or mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, It's the Lord wills, then we will live and do this or that. We live our lives according to the will of God. We know what the word of God says so that we can live according to the will of God. And we wonder if we have any say for what happens day-to-day. God is in control. God has the final say. Isaiah 46, the picture of God that jumps off the page and says, God speaking to his people through his prophets says, for I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from the ancient times to things not yet done, saying my counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose." Isaiah 46, 9 through 10 declares God to be sovereign over all things. He declared it at the end, from the beginning, from the ancient times to things that aren't even done, and His counsel, His word, and His will will stand forever and accomplish all of His purpose. So what does God mean when he says, I am God, there is none like me. We have churches, we in our own hearts, because we drift from the word of God, create a God in our minds. Society or churches have created a God in their own minds or in their own pulpits distorting the Word of God. We as believers, if we're not in the Word of God daily, we will recreate God in our mind to fit the needs of our day, to fit our desires, to fit even our own sin, to accommodate ourselves. When God says, there's none like me, God is alone, eternal. He has no beginning and no end. Psalm 92 says, before the mountains were brought forth or ever thought, Thou art formed, for thou has formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting. Thou art God. God is, there's nothing, no one like God. We try to say, well, God can't do this because God's this way. If God wants to do what he wants to do and God will do what is according to his purpose. And who are we to question him? Acts 17 says this about God, that He is sufficient and independent God that made the world and all the things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither is worship by men's hands, as though He needed anything, seeing He giveth to all life and breath to all things. It says He doesn't need anything. He's alone the creator of everything. Isaiah 44, verse 24 says, thus saith the Lord, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things. So what else does it mean that God, there's no other like God. God alone is the sustainer of all creation. We read that earlier in the Psalm. In Hebrews 1 verse 3, read this in Sunday school class. Talking of God who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person and upholding all things by the word of His power. He upholds all things. When God says, I am God, there is none like me, he means that he is alone, all powerful. Jeremiah 32, verse 17 says, ah, Lord God, behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee. There's none other like God, because God knows everything. There's some of us that act like we know everything, but we really, really don't. And nobody better than none in their head will look up, but none of us know everything. God knows it all. 1 John, when we went through that study, we read chapter three, verse 20 of 1 John, for thou, for if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart because he knows, or he knoweth all things. Those are things that we need to be reminded of. God is not like us in any way. And we need to read the word of God and study the word of God that we might know what everlasting to everlasting means, that God is eternal. and that God is powerful, but we want a smaller God, and we want to stay away from the Word of God because it's too hard to understand, or we just don't like to read, or there's other reasons, or we'd rather listen to this preacher, or that preacher, or listen to what this guy says, and we get drifted off into la-la land because somebody goes sideways. The only thing we can trust is the Word of God. We put our trust in it, and I'm talking about if Stan and I are standing here preaching or Josh, you need to check what we say through the word of God. That is the authority for all things preached, all things said and all things in the life of a believer. Even on the sovereignty, as we discuss and maybe even debated sometimes the sovereignty of God and salvation, and we'll be answering some questions on that that some of you had. Some of them already answered. We'll emphasize those a little bit. So when God says, my counsel will stand and I will accomplish all my purpose, we look at that phrase and think, well, that is just selfish, isn't it? Why would God want to do it according to his purpose? He didn't consult me on that. What about my purposes? What about his purposes? What about somebody else's purposes? What about everybody's purposes? We're in this age where everybody's supposed to be considered for everything. We are a fallen creation. We are sinful people. Even in our regenerate state as being believers, born again believers, we still have hearts that desperately will drift into wickedness. If God does according to his purpose, God is good. We say that all the time and people say it all the time. And we say it, but we don't believe it. God is good, which means he can make no bad decisions. Whatever God does, whatever his purposes are, they are good. And if God does everything according to his purposes, they are good. If we don't agree with him, something needs to change in us because they are good. We wonder, will God allow somebody to die of COVID? Obviously, yes. How can that be good? Ask God. He does this according to his purpose. He is God. He knows all that goes on. He has a plan. Daniel 4, 35 says, God does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the habitants of the earth. And none can stay his hand or say to him, what have you done? That'll be a verse we read or put on our doorpost that we might be reminded of how great and awesome God is. And just how small we are. Who are we to say, what have you done? So we read this Psalm that says this great and awesome God, who is the only God and the one true God and the sovereign God of all creation, is watching you and me and all the inhabitants. And if you're a person in Christ, you have confidence. If you're not in Christ, this ought to terrify you and scare you to death. It's frightening and should scare you to death to know that all hearts are open, all desires are known by God. to those of us who are in Christ or are born again whose sins are covered by the blood of Jesus Christ the thought of a watchful caring God is comforting. We have God's protection which is the next best thing we see that it says look at our scripture back here. From the place of His habitation He looked at all the habitants. He fashioned their hearts alike, considered all their works in verse 15. There is no king saved by the multitude of a host. A mighty man is not delivered by much strength. It's just saying God's the one that will save you. God's the one that protects you, not the king. Even a horse, a good horse, which was a sign of strength and power, is vain for safety. Neither shall he deliver any with his great strength. Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him and the hope to his mercy. God is the one who protects us. You know, if we thought about it, God protects us. I don't know how many things he probably protects us of daily that we don't know about. But God protects us. And it's not just an accident. When people die, I heard Stephen Lawson talking to a gentleman in a sermon he was preaching. He spoke of a gentleman talking about a sovereign God. And the man was tore up about the death of his wife. And we read scripture and it says it's appointed for man to die. And though it's sad when someone passes away, God appoints that day. And Stephen Lawson counseled that young pastor and said, that was the perfect day according to a sovereign God who is good for your wife to pass away. It's still sad. It doesn't take the sadness away. But God is sovereign even over our death. And it's God who protects us. I heard David Jeremiah, and I shared it in a sermon once, David Jeremiah quoting, I think Richard Baxter, when he said that, that God's man doing God's work is invincible and indestructible until God's done with him, until that appointed day. So we think about it in our prayers. We often, and we do pray for those tangible things. We pray for our families, our homes, our friends, our work. We praise God for our nation that we live in. But we also ought to thank him for what we don't have, the things he's protected us from. We ought to consider the protecting hand of God. We take for granted, we've talked about taking for granted the fact that we get together for church. We take for granted the very safety that our family has, the very safety that we had even being here tonight and traveling here tonight. It is God who protects us. We have a lot to be thankful for. We often go to God with just our grocery list. And time flies on our, on these nights when we're together. Have a little story to share with you. I got it from Spurgeon. So I think it qualifies to be able to be shared if I can find it here. I had so much more we're going to talk about. But Charles Spurgeon in his Treasury of David, which is the his commentary on the Psalms, his sermons on the Psalms. He credited this to another man talking about a young boy who was at sea during a dangerous storm. The passengers were frightened. And they were at their wits end. But this young boy was not disturbed at all. In fact, he was even cheerful. The other people began to ask him how he could be cheerful when it seemed that the danger was growing and they might lose their lives. He replied that the pilot of the ship was his father and that he knew his father would take care of him. In this life, a confidence such as that might be misplaced, he said. For however loving and skillful a human father might be, there are always dangers in life that are beyond us. And no one is able to guarantee the physical, much less the spiritual safety of another. Yet God, with our God, there can be no misplacing of confidence and no error of trust. This God who made the entire universe by merely a word and the breath of his mouth, who folds the plans of evil men and evil nations, his purposes will prevail and his plans will prosper. Amen and amen, let's pray. Father, we praise you tonight that we can come to you with confidence knowing you are in control of all things. And Lord, we exalt you. Lord, we look around and So many are not with us, some sick, some hurting. And if we're not careful, we begin to be troubled and questionable. Pray that your will would prevail in our hearts, that we might pray according to your will. Think according to your will and live according to your will. We lift up our brothers and sisters who aren't with us and pray for their healing. knowing that they are in your hands, a sovereign God who is in control, not leaving anything to chance, but all according to your purpose. And we praise you that we can have that confidence and assurance tonight, and pray that everyone that's here tonight knows you personally, that when they think of a watchful eye of creator God, that their heart is restful and at peace, as if their father were watching over them. Pray that someone that's here that might be troubled, knowing that God sees their heart and sees their wickedness and their lostness and their unrighteous filthiness that's in, that's there on their hands and that if they were to die, they would have to pay the price for their sins. And Lord, I pray for that person tonight to be convicted and drawn by you. And Lord, repent and surrender their life to you. We pray over our time of invitation, our time of reflection, Lord, that we wouldn't stop considering who you are at the end of the music, but that we would walk in the precepts of what we've learned of you, great and mighty, awesome God, and that we might walk in them, not just for the evening, but for the rest of our lives, honoring you. We praise you tonight in Jesus' name. Well, if you'll stand, we'll have a hymn of invitation. I'm thankful that Mark and Julie are here to do that for us. And we give thanks for that. And we give thanks for you for being here. But tonight, let's stop and moment and see lies the Psalm calls out so often and consider what we've just heard about God and consider who he is.